Amie shook him by the arm. “I swear you can’t be serious for five minutes about anything!”
He held up a hand to cover her palm from the other side. “Easy now! ’Tis an insidious accusation and I will have none of it! We shall have out your questions and furthermore I promise you this, whatever you should like to do next today, consider it done.” Bringing her knuckles in for a butterfly’s kiss he released her, crossed his arms over his chest and adopted his most scholarly air.
Amie struggled not to laugh, shook her head. “Okay…why do some people call you Iudicael and others Henry? Was that your name before? It sounds older. Did you use it once, long ago?”
A cloud passed over his face, and finally he said, “Aye…’tis my true name, Jessamiene. One I forsook long ago for a darker time.” His eyes briefly grazed hers, fondly settled over her features. “Can you not guess to which dark time I am referring? Have you not heard the whispers, lass?”
Doing her best attempt not to turn red, Amie hesitated. “I know you were in love before, a long time ago. She called you Iudicael, didn’t she? That’s why you go by Henry now?” His eyes widened with the use of his true name, fixated on her lips and grimaced.
“True names are dangerous things in times like these. They hold power, never forget this. Others can take them and use them against you, Jessamiene. This is why you must never reveal your true name to anyone unless you trust them through and out.”
Amie frowned. “What is my true name?” Henry’s eyes were still too far away to answer and before she could dissect further Rado had emerged with his packaged creation. There was surprisingly no fitting, no last-minute changes.
“I declare this pish-posh the peak of my proudest production!” Rado declared.
Try saying that five times as fast, Amie mused to herself. To Uncle Henry she queried, “Uncle, don’t you think we should at least look at it?” She awkwardly turned the large box in her hands. Henry held the other three, though what else he could have bought was a mystery beyond her.
Rado gasped and the faeries above tinkled with laughter. “Oh no, you mustn’t or you’ll undo the brimbles. They are very sensitive at the moment.” His grubby hands covered Amie’s and she wondered how his thick fingers managed a needle at all.
“Um…thank you.”
Her words made him balloon into a beaming, blushing, rocking-on-his-heels bundle.
“Do not forget, old friend! Be at the gates within a thousand hummingbirds’ heartbeats of sunfall!” Henry called over his shoulder before opening the shop door. Amie smiled at the faeries alighting on Rado’s shoulders and the brim of his cap.
“So where to next?” She skipped to catch up and nearly ran into Henry’s solid back once the door clinked shut behind them. “What the crap?”
Chapter 30
Silver Hollow
Amie could feel the anger rising in her Uncle to a peak she had never seen. For the first time his nixy awakened with a force as powerful as the sun. It frightened her, not because she was worried about her own safety, but because she worried what he was about to do in front of their subjects.
“Why, that brambling, brimbling fool!” he hissed under his breath. Amie moved around him, hoping to calm his rising temper, and her eyes widened. The brief silence was interrupted by a sudden cheer and the familiar sound of a fist impacting flesh. The curious crowd had circled Emrys and his opponent, a rather large hobgoblin from the looks of things. He had to be the size of Cook at least…
Wait…it’s Cook!
Slaine smoked his pipe from his seat on the coach and growled at the air, “Was bound to happen sooner than later I fear. Too much nixy in one place for the poor lad.” At Amie’s glare he grinned and added, “Why, Alastair be half Sidhe and Hobgoblin, milady, ’tis why he never was well at gathering all his wits.”
Henry shoved her other boxes into the cab, and Amie added hers to the pile, rushing after him. They hardly had to shove their way through the excitable crowd. Clearly they weren’t concerned for the merlin. “Out of my way! Out of my way! Alastair! Emrys! Gather your wits, man!” Uncle seemed confused on whether to step in and stop the fight or absolve this with dignity.
Neither man seemed to notice their mutual employer standing before them. Emrys ducked faster than Alastair could throw his mighty fists, and he continuously threw taunts at the larger male.
“Come on, even a true wight would have hit me by now! You’re slow and weak, Alastair, always were a sodden bushwickle!”
“Say one more thing and I’ll show ye where you can shove your acornips!” Cook growled back, dancing on his feet in a curious boxing strut. Emrys laughed and jabbed in moves too polished, as if he already knew his opponent’s next move. Amie had been forced to spar nixies with him many times, but she had never done much else than wrestle with him. That was her last resort, as he called it, if she were in a tight bind. This display was something else entirely, as if he were playing with the usually docile giant.
Alastair roared, “I know what ye truly are, ye nasty Unseelie! Cruel miserable born of a dark wight!” His knuckle grazed Emrys’ jaw and all in the vicinity heard it crack. Though he should have been bloody and writhing on the ground in pain, Emrys quickly recovered.
“Ever wonder what truly happened to your miserable mother, Alastair?” Emrys said maliciously. “Did you ever wonder who helped shove the knife in her chest, or why?”
Alastair saw red and screamed, “Bloodletting wight!”
“Gentlemen, that is quite enough!” Henry bellowed and the crowd fell silent at the crackle of energy spilling from his mouth with the force of thunder. Amie plugged her ears at the rumble and was amazed when neither Emrys nor Cook stopped. Instead Emrys ducked in a blur of movement too quick even for Alastair’s raging strength.
“Cook, look out!” Amie gasped when Emrys landed one in the giant’s jaw. Cook’s eyes widened and sought Amie.
“Milady? Master!” He bowed himself in half with a wince.
Amie was too frightened to look at Uncle Henry now. She remembered how scary her father could be if the temper took him. Drustan never actually did anything. It was the look in his face, the flex of his knuckles that told you he could, and this was more frightening.
In a tightly controlled tone the Lord of Wenderdowne and Silver Hollow addressed the two. “I had hoped such barbarity was long past us, Myrddin Emrys. I thought anyone employed within my house should keep to the code no matter what cowardly methods were used to draw their grit out!”
Cook kept his head bowed in submission, but Amie saw his scowl deepen and his eyes flicker to the Merlin in front of him.
Emrys smoothed. “Come now, Iudicael. You know I never go looking for a brawl!” His wild dark eyes told a different story. Cook’s face tightened when Emrys turned to address Amie. “Milady is not too stirred by such a violent display, aye?” Sarcasm dripped so easily, an undertone of his words, most others would never catch it. Unfortunately Amie knew the Bane of the Vale all too well, and so too did Alastair. “If it were not for this half breed I might have—oof!”
Cook moved faster than he had the entire fight they had witnessed, took a sharp jab to the side of Emrys’ face before their master could stop them. Emrys fell in a heap to the ground with a grin on his face. Uncle Henry burst out laughing when Cook shrugged and said, “Got tired of hearing him chad on.”
Amie smiled when the crowd followed Uncle Henry’s laughter, passing along round silver coins to each other in payment for their debts. Slaine cackled behind them.
“Alastair, watch over Lady Wenderdowne, if you are indeed finished with your business this day. I need a word with Emrys. Jessamiene, you may have a look around the shops but do nay worry about us. I shall see you at home.” Henry clasped a hand on Emrys’s shoulder and the two ambled off with the crowd.
Amie was still reeling from Slaine’s revelation. Cook was half Seelie? Not that she had seen too much of a difference between her father’s people and Underhill’s, she wou
ldn’t have known it was possible.
Then again, where did you think you came from, Wenderdowne?
“Better get a move on, milady!” Slaine shouted over to them. Amie glanced back over her shoulder and frowned at the old cabbie. He looked up at her as he emptied his pipe into the street and began to stuff it afresh.
“Just a second,” Amie said, eyeing a contrite Alastair. The burly man had yet to raise his head. Though she couldn’t explain it, a part of her felt betrayed, learning secondhand he too was a half-breed like her. She wanted to know why Emrys and Alastair hated one another so much. And she wanted to punish Emrys for disliking someone because of what they were.
Slaine interrupted before she could begin her interrogation. “Aye, well, the locals have been peeping out of their windows quite a bit and I’m afraid if we don’t move soon we shall only stir the poor poshumicked creatures to the dithers.”
Alastair straightened his back and frowned at the obscured faces watching them from the dank alleyways. “He’s right, you know. They’ll be talking about this till the next solstice and I’ve had enough of my own kin today. What say we go for a drive, milady?”
…
On their way past the last of the village gates, Amie started out of her inner monologue the moment she caught sight of a familiar figure. Dressed in hobgoblin silks and a veil, it was almost impossible to identify the gypsy. But there was something in the way her black bobbed hair gleamed in the sunlight. For a moment Amie had flashbacks of her high school years and making movies with her best friends, the twins.
“Faye?” Amie gasped, startled, when the woman met her eyes briefly and winked.
No way, it has to be a look-alike or magic or something!
Her eyes flickered to the figure standing in the shadows of the gate she danced before. An outrageous feathered hat was his most defining feature. It was quite impossible to not be drawn to the man beneath the flamboyant apparel. He was a blend of Errol Flynn and D’Artagnan and when he turned his head to meet her stare, twirling his mustache between his fingers, she gasped.
Whoa…think I’m going to seriously need therapy after all this.
“What’s the matter, lass?” Alastair had been glancing nervously from her to the road ever since they loaded up the last goods into his cart. Amie hated when people found out about her parents’ car accident. The looks she received afterward were unsettling and often accidentally patronizing. The looks Alastair was giving her were of a familiar kind, the sort Jo gave her before she dished the details of another failed relationship.
“I know that man,” Amie said, though she wasn’t sure how. The Musketeer stood against the gate with several other official and shady-looking characters. It was difficult to tell who was of the goblin and Seelie kind here. His friends turned to follow his distraction and their faces froze eerily neutral. The man smiled.
Faye’s face was the last thing she saw, a teasing smile on her lips, the same face she made when she knew something Amie didn’t. Amie wasn’t convinced yet, but if this wasn’t one of her two best friends in the entire world, she was afraid to learn who had stolen her face.
Has to be a Jedi mind trick!
“Milady?” Alastair asked warily.
In a flash, they had passed the outer gate, the man gone from sight and the wide open fields before them. Even with the sun at its zenith the heat only barely warmed her skin. For the winds seemed colder now, the distant clouds darker over the valley. Amie’s stomach grumbled and she realized she had eaten nothing since breakfast. Glancing at Cook, she realized he was expecting an answer and nodded.
“I’m fine.” When he continued to watch her between his surveys of the looming trees she grumbled her frustrations. “What?”
“Milady?”
“Why are you acting like I’m about to break? Do you have any idea how frustrating that is?”
His eyes widened considerably. Amie recalled his glory days of rough-housing and carousing and realized half of it must be fabricated. Because the giant of a half breed blushed at her words and ducked his head.
“Sorry, Jessamiene. I just was wondering, after what you saw, if you knew.”
“Knew what?” She watched him try to mask his surprise.
“Why, that I’m half Seelie, and it’s a bloodletting curse sometimes.” He growled several unintelligible words. Soon they passed the treetop village and the beast tamers’ world beneath and under the watch of the enchanted forest Amie felt a kinship with the most unlikely of people.
“I know. Slaine told me during the fight.”
Alastair nodded to himself, and after a pause suddenly launched into a cavalcade of life stories. She attempted to wholly listen since this was the most truth to have ever escaped her friend’s mouth.
He had grown up in Silver Hollow, forced to defend his blood status with his fists most of his youth. He recalled the reputation he had developed in the underbelly and it wasn’t long before his crimes were called to the higher council’s attention. Fortunately, Henry Wenderdowne was the leader of this council and he had known Alastair’s mother. Vouching for the lad himself, Henry took him in.
“I was a right bushwickled scrapper, Jessamiene. Can’t believe Master found me. I’d still be on those streets facing the likes of old featherbrains and worse.”
Nudging his arm with her shoulder, she threw his old words back at him. “I thought there was no one worse than Emrys in the entire Vale?”
“Aye…well…he do be the worst kind for scrimpling.”
“So how did so many different peoples end up here?”
For a long moment Alastair pondered. “Dashed if I know all the nips and tucks of it, but ’tis for certain the Wenderdownes are right there in the mix of the dough.” When her stomach loudly grumbled, Cook nodded to the back of the bench behind them. “Dredge up the basket over yonder way. Thought that fool of a feather would forget to feed you.”
“You’re a lifesaver!” Amie devoured the basket’s contents and while not nearly as good as Alastair’s cooking, the tavern food was admittedly homey. She had nearly finished her second mutton slice when Cook threw in a curve ball she never saw coming.
“Been thinking hard on it these past days, Jessamiene, and I’ve decided to tell you at last. Though if he heard whisper of what I’m about to tell you no doubt he’d burn the skin off me back.” Pausing for a moment to shiver, he grasped the reins tighter. “’Tis good you spend your secret time with Dearg…”
Amie choked and then coughed on her half-chewed meat. Holding her throat, she turned her orbs to the giant’s eye. Amie did not quite meet his chin, even when they were sitting together. Before she could begin to think of what she could confess he beat her to it. With the same shrewd glance he had shown during their mornings cooking with and simultaneously keeping secrets from Underhill, he now eyed her.
“I’ve known the Cutterworthy folk ever since I was a lad meself. Of course I noticed the way he been looking at you. Never seen Eddie so shaken up since you came. Ever since he got back from his trip, well, since she died, he just ain’t been the same as before.” He was thinking in that annoying lateral way men were infamous for. Apparently the male trait carried over species.
“Cook…I haven’t told Uncle Henry and Emrys…”
Lifting a firm hand, he interrupted and said, “I’m no sneak, milady. Not breathed a word of it to anyone! And with good reason too.”
Frowning, she watched shadows dance between pockets of sunlight peeking through the treetops. She wondered how Cook had discovered something no one else stopped to guess.
“Be careful, Jessamiene.” His words rushed out with his held breath. “I hated the Merlin long before you ever came in here with your pretty face. But the way he watches over you skins me skiver.” His knuckles turned white in their increased grip. Amie studied them, wondering how many fights he must have lost and won, to get knuckles like those.
“I don’t trust him either, Alastair,” she admitted with a twinge of som
ething like betrayal looming over her conscience. Finding a firmer tone she insisted, “I know how manipulative he can be.”
But it didn’t stop you from falling into his arms, did it?
Cook looked relieved and even more concerned than before if this were possible. “What’s he done to you, milady? Master has some strange pact with the devil but say the word and I’ll make him disappear!”
Because of his vehemence she smiled and linked her arm through his without another word.
“I’ll let you know.”
Chapter 31
Faerie Mischief
Amie helped Cook unload his cart, despite his growls and protests. By the time they were finished the sun was heading towards its bed rest, though its receding colors had yet to make a grand entrance. Feeling far less inclined to join the others in the Dining Hall, Amie made one last trip to her room before sneaking into the gardens.
The moment Amie stepped through the kitchen into the main hall she grasped for the first time what this ball was intended to do. Servants rushed around like bees in a hive, each darting to finish last minute preparations. At the crux of them all stood Rachel Elisedd Underhill, finger pointing in various directions, eyes blazing. Her usual flustered state was replaced by a hobgoblin worth the responsibility Uncle placed on her shoulders.
What made her stop in the mix of it all, however, was the transformation of her house. All traces of dust and cobwebs, torn tapestries and scorch marks had been removed. The house gleamed polished and fresh as a new penny, filled with colors and life and the scent of flowers being gathered for decoration. Amie could feel the energy of the plants even from here. They curled and twisted toward her, and Amie smirked, knowing the surprise she could give them all in the morning.
“Milady! What in horned honeysuckles are you doing down here? It’s nearly supper time and you must change! Quickly!” Underhill skipped to meet her in time. Amie bit back a laugh, because she had no intention of coming to dinner.
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